# The Napoleonic Wars  ## Metadata - Author: [[Alexander Mikaberidze]] - Full Title: The Napoleonic Wars - Category: #napoleonic-campaigns ## Highlights - Considered by many to be one of Napoleon’s biggest mistakes, the Continental System was not as irrational as it is sometimes alleged. It was, at its simplest, “war by other means,” to use Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s famous phrase—an attempt to utilize economic means to resolve existing military/political problems. ([Location 5482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=5482)) - The resulting Continental System thus had three interrelated parts: the use of military victory to reduce Britain’s economic power through blockade of British goods, the formation of an economic sphere to foster economic development on the continent, and the consolidation of French hegemony on the continent. ([Location 5532](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=5532)) - Though the Napoleonic Empire would turn out to be transient, Napoleon had always had a political vision for the continent. “I wished to found a European system, a European code of laws, a European judiciary. There would be but one people in Europe,” he claimed in his exile. But this vision of “the United States of Europe,” which was later popularized by generations of authors and writers, should not be construed as an early version of the European Union. It did not entail equality of its members or the creation of an economic union with free trade and unrestricted movement. ([Location 5554](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=5554)) - Equally important, however, was Napoleon’s desire to replenish the war-scarred French navy with warships from the Iberian nations; Portugal may have had a small navy, but its warships were of excellent quality. As one of the leading historians of the Napoleonic navy pointed out, “In nearly every order issued to the commander of the invasion of Portugal, General Jean-Andoche Junot, Napoleon stressed the need to secure the Portuguese fleet.”14 ([Location 5849](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=5849)) - The French occupation of Portugal faced only feeble Portuguese resistance, partly due to the lack of central leadership and partly due to the reputation of the French armies. ([Location 5908](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=5908)) - The departure of the royal court, which would remain in Brazil for thirteen years, marked the demise of Portugal’s ancien régime and a transatlantic shift of profound political, cultural, and economic consequences. For the first time, a ruling European royal house established itself in overseas colonies, highlighting the crucial role colonial holdings played in the life of the metropole. ([Location 5928](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=5928)) - The Bayonne abdications seemed to represent yet another of Napoleon’s masterstrokes. But it involved an odious combination of force and deception, which does justify one eminent historian’s conclusion that “in talents, Napoleon was a great military captain; in character and methods, a great capo mafioso.” ([Location 6095](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6095)) - Napoleon’s confidant General Anne Jean Marie René Savary later admitted that “we did not show enough consideration for Spanish national self-esteem.”71 ([Location 6111](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6111)) - In many respects, the occupation of Spain was one of Napoleon’s most fundamental miscalculations, a mistake for which he would pay a heavy price. He could have pursued a much safer course by marrying one of his relatives to Prince Ferdinand (as the latter had repeatedly asked), establishing a matrimonial alliance with Spain that he would have been able to dominate. Instead, the emperor chose the more radical course of getting rid of the Spanish Bourbons and taking direct charge over their realm. ([Location 6114](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6114)) - On May 2, as rumors spread that the French were pressuring the Junta de Gobierno, the governing council left behind by Ferdinand, into sending the last members of the royal family to Bayonne, the citizens of Madrid took the streets and massacred some 150 French troops. The following day, Murat brought in reinforcements that suppressed what became known as Dos de Mayo Uprising, so vividly immortalized by the great Spanish artist Goya. In retaliation for the killings of May 2, the French army executed hundreds of Spaniards but still failed to quell the revolt, which triggered a groundswell of resistance across Spain as locally organized groups defied French authority and began attacking foreign troops. ([Location 6129](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6129)) - Inspired partly by the writings of the great Spanish scholar Francisco Suárez, these local governments argued that the authority of the state was not derived from the divine monarchy but was based on a social contract between the monarch and the people. ([Location 6137](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6137)) - With Spain’s legitimate monarch in French captivity, the local governments felt justified in transforming themselves into ad hoc governmental juntas consisting of leading local figures.75 These juntas fostered nationalist sentiments, rejected the Junta de Gobierno’s pronouncements, and called for organized resistance to the French occupation. As early as the end of May the juntas of Valencia and Seville decreed the mass mobilization of adult men and recruited more than 20,000 men who swore their allegiance to Ferdinand and pledged to fight the common enemy. ([Location 6140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6140)) - The Constitution of Bayonne was also never fully implemented. By the time King Joseph reached Madrid in late July 1808, he had a full-blown war on his hands. ([Location 6167](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6167)) - Bailén was the worst French military performance of the Napoleonic Wars, made more humiliating by the fact that it was a triumph of the same Spanish royal army that Napoleon had derided as the worst in Europe. ([Location 6186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6186)) - In August 1808 the British army landed in Portugal under the command of Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley. The British defeated General Henri François Delaborde at the Battle of Roliça on August 17 and, four days later, engaged Junot’s main forces at Vimeiro, where the thin red line under Wellesley’s superb leadership repelled poorly coordinated French assaults and garnered a major victory.88 Despite his victories, Wellesley was still a junior in command, and he was soon superseded by more senior officers Sir Harry Burrard and Sir Hew Dalrymple. On August 30 Dalrymple, a cautious man who had seen little fighting and was eager to exploit circumstances without further resort to violence, signed the Convention of Cintra, which granted the French very favorable armistice terms, including unmolested departure from Portugal. ([Location 6223](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6223)) - The news of the Convention of Cintra, which had effectively negated Wellesley’s earlier victories, arrived in Britain in the wake of reports of the British triumph at Vimeiro and caused a political scandal in Britain.89 Dalrymple, Burrard, and Wellesley were execrated, and all three of them were swiftly relieved of command in the peninsula. A specially formed commission recalled the three commanders from Portugal and subjected them to an official inquiry. In the end all three were cleared. Burrard and Dalrymple were quietly pushed into retirement, while Wellesley moved on to greater things.90 ([Location 6231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6231)) - Napoleon even expressed a desire to take control of Constantinople and the Straits, informing the incredulous Russians that while this move would pose no threat to Russia, Russian control of these locations would directly threaten France. ([Location 6261](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6261)) - Napoleon wanted Alexander to exert pressure on Austria to prevent it from attacking France while he was in Spain. Alexander refused to commit himself. Unbeknown to the French emperor, the Russian ruler had met with the French foreign minister, who urged him to resist the French demands. Talleyrand’s behavior has long been debated, with some accusing him of treason and others pointing to higher ideals that motivated the minister. ([Location 6281](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6281)) - Talleyrand was not yet actively trying to overthrow the emperor, but he was already convinced that France’s national interest required that imperial ambitions be curbed before it was too late. ([Location 6287](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6287)) - was during one of his meetings with Emperor Alexander that Talleyrand supposedly told him: “Sire, what have you come to do here? It is up to you to save Europe and you will only succeed by standing up to Napoleon. The French people are civilized, its ruler is not; the ruler of Russia is civilized, his people are not. It is thus up to the Russian ruler to be the ally of the French people.”103 Talleyrand made a fundamental distinction between working for Napoleon and serving the French nation, choosing the latter. ([Location 6289](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6289)) - Talleyrand’s disloyalty continued even after he returned to Paris; he became, in effect a Russian agent, code-named “Anna Ivanovna,” and provided Russia with sound advice and information for years to come.105 ([Location 6302](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6302)) - The most visible example of this defiance came from the city of Saragossa, which was first unsuccessfully besieged from June through August 1808. The French returned in December when Marshal Jean Lannes brought some 44,000 men (with more than 140 cannon) to the city’s walls. The Spanish garrison of 34,000 men, commanded by General José Palafox, refused to surrender and was actively supported by some 60,000 civilians. The ensuing siege, lasting until February 20, represented one of the worst urban combats ever seen in Europe before the twentieth century and redefined the contemporary notions of siege warfare. Men, women, and children armed with knives, swords, pikes, muskets, or stones fought alongside Spanish soldiers, transforming buildings into fortlets and repelling French assaults in spite of their own appalling losses. Ultimately the French did succeed in taking the city, but only after they had systematically mined and destroyed a large portion of it and killed an estimated 54,000 Spaniards, two-thirds of them civilians. ([Location 6391](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6391)) - Recent scholarship, most notably by British historian Charles J. Esdaile, has revealed major problems with such an approach. It has shown that the primary concern for many rebels was not the preservation of the Bourbon (or, for that matter, Bragança) monarchy. Instead it was a fight for land, bread, and, in many cases, revenge on the propertied classes. The guerrillas did attack French convoys, intercept French communications, and harass enemy rears, but they also engaged in predatory activities against Spanish towns and villages and were routinely heavy-handed in extracting food and supplies from their own compatriots. Neither were the leaders of this insurgence united by common goals or ideology. To the contrary, they entertained a variety of conflicting interests, though they did share a common desire to resist French occupation. ([Location 6424](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6424)) - The damage inflicted by the guerrillas on the French was immense: the French forces were constantly harassed, their attempts to requisition supplies encountered obstacles at every step, and King Joseph’s officials trying to carry out instructions were either killed or living in constant fear of being killed. ([Location 6442](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6442)) - common saying among the troops that was scrawled in many places proclaimed, “War in Spain … death for soldiers, ruin for officers, fortune for generals.”130 ([Location 6449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6449)) - Born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family, Wellesley first rose to prominence as the victor of several major battles in India, where he served under his brother, Richard Wellesley. ([Location 6468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6468)) - Notorious for his stern countenance and acerbic temper—he frequently reduced grown men to tears—Wellesley was, like Napoleon, a man of contrasts: of modest personal tastes yet with vigorous sexual appetites; possessing a keen mind yet displaying intellectual arrogance; having a pronounced sense of duty yet tending toward great injustice and shifting responsibility for mistakes on to others. ([Location 6470](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6470)) - Talavera was a British victory, but it came at a heavy price, with the British losing a quarter of their force (over 6,000 men) in two days of fighting. Wellesley, who was ennobled as Viscount Wellington for this battle, understood the pyrrhic nature of his success and, with Soult threatening his communication lines, had no choice but to retreat hastily back to Portugal. ([Location 6494](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6494)) - The Royal Navy was instrumental to the success of this grand strategy. Although it was not immediately clear, control of the sea meant victory on land, because the navy provided crucial logistical support. ([Location 6510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6510)) - Napoleon nominated Marshal André Masséna to lead the new Army of Portugal. Masséna was one of the most talented French commanders, probably more capable of conducting such an important campaign than any other marshal. Napoleon pledged 100,000 men, with whom Masséna was to destroy the British and take Lisbon. That promise never fully materialized. The French marshal ultimately received 65,000 men and faced continued logistical challenges when he embarked on an invasion of Portugal. He did everything he could do to succeed, but in light of the limited resources at his disposal and the substantial opposition he faced, his task was clearly challenging, if attainable at all. ([Location 6553](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6553)) - This effectively marked the end of the French campaign and the twilight of the marshal’s glorious career. “Masséna had grown old,” bemoaned Napoleon as he replaced him with the young and ambitious Marshal August Marmont. ([Location 6585](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6585)) - Six days after the battle, General Maximilien-Sebastien Foy wrote in his diary that the Battle of Salamanca was the most skillfully fought, the largest in scale, and the most important in results of any that the British had fought in recent times. “It elevates Lord Wellington’s reputation almost to the level of that of Marlborough,” he observed. “We knew about his prudence, his eye for choosing good positions, and the skill with which he used them. But at Salamanca he has shown himself a great and capable master of maneuvering.”155 Salamanca thus demolished the belief that Wellington was merely a defensive-minded and overly cautious commander. Instead, it secured his reputation as a British war hero and one of the great military leaders in Europe. ([Location 6641](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6641)) - But the fate of the Napoleonic Empire was not decided in the rolling hills of Spain, even if Napoleon himself later claimed that “it was the Spanish ulcer that destroyed me.” In reality, events in Spain, as important as they were, did not threaten the survival of the French Empire, and Napoleon continued to dominate the rest of the continent. The future of Europe was instead decided in the snowy fields of Russia and on the green plains of Germany, where Napoleon’s inability to score a decisive victory and impose his will on the coalition leaders had, as we shall see, profound repercussions. ([Location 6665](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6665)) - Historian thomas nipperday’s acclaimed history of nineteenth-century Germany opens with the sentence “In the beginning was Napoleon.”1 The idea goes to the very heart of the issue of Napoleon’s place in European history. ([Location 6725](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6725)) - The informal empire also included tens of millions of people residing in the subject and allied states beyond the French imperial frontiers. These territories can be categorized into three groups based on the extent of control Napoleon exercised over them. The first included states that had retained their sovereignty but became “allies” of France and were compelled to acquiesce to Napoleonic demands and policies. ([Location 6758](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6758)) - The second group included nominally independent states that were under the control of individuals whom the French emperor hand-selected. ([Location 6762](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6762)) - Finally, the third category was of satellite states that were nominally independent but closely supervised and managed by the emperor from Paris. ([Location 6775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6775)) - It would nonetheless be disingenuous to claim that Napoleon had a master plan for the development of Europe or that he introduced such reforms for the sake of revolutionary ideology or principle. In fact, when considering Napoleon’s political schemes, it is not always easy to determine what was end and what was means, whether a specific policy was carried out merely for its own sake and short-term gain or intended as a step toward some long-term goal. ([Location 6821](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6821)) - Some would credit Napoleon with laying the foundation for the key features of the present-day European Union—equality before the law, a common legal system, a single economic market, dismantling of borders, and so on.10 ([Location 6828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6828)) - His insistence on agricultural protectionism for France meant that many satellite states, especially in northern Europe, experienced a deepening depression in agricultural prices due to their inability to trade with Britain and to France’s refusal to fill the resulting gap. ([Location 6843](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6843)) - The Napoleonic system represented a sort of cultural imperialism. ([Location 6878](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6878)) - The Swiss Confederation was coerced into supplying 12,000 men, who served alongside tens of thousands of conscripts from the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Italy; it has been estimated that 125,000 Italian soldiers out of the 200,000 who served in the Napoleonic Wars perished from disease, the elements, or combat. ([Location 6902](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6902)) - Recent scholarship has clearly shown that conscription was the focal point of power struggles between the central state and local communities and contributed to their mounting estrangement. It created a profound collision between the traditional and modern and made people choose sides, thereby placing the very governability of the state at risk. ([Location 6916](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6916)) - Another crucial element of Napoleon’s imperial policy was making occupied territories and satellite states useful to the empire through increased exploitation of their markets and resources. ([Location 6926](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6926)) - To woo talented men who could serve him loyally in exchange for a stake in the new regime, the emperor resorted to distributing dotations that were derived from his claim to as much as half of the income of the domain lands seized from the feudal lords and nationalized royal lands. The donataire (recipient) had to swear an oath of allegiance to Napoleon and was entitled to steady revenue from designated fiefs in the conquered territories of the Grand Empire, most notably Westphalia and the Duchy of Warsaw. The scale of the dotation system was vast, and by the end of the empire it counted nearly six thousand individuals who together received some 30 million francs a year; in Westphalia alone, nearly 20 percent of public revenues went to satisfy the needs of the donataires, greatly hampering efforts to develop the Westphalian state and preventing it from ever being fiscally solvent. ([Location 6987](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=6987)) - The effects of the French occupation stirred national sentiments among many Germans. The plight of German states inspired Johann Fichte, a professor at the University of Erlangen, to deliver his famous fourteen “Addresses to the German Nation” (1808), one of the first expressions of budding German nationalism. ([Location 7209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=7209)) - Fichte’s appeals for an enlightened system of education had a noteworthy effect. The Prussian education system was reformed and placed under the leadership of the distinguished Prussian philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (brother of the famed geographer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt), who used his learning and enthusiasm to lay the foundation for what became the Humboldtisches Bildungsideal (Humboldtian education ideal), integrating the arts and sciences with research to achieve comprehensive general learning and cultural knowledge. ([Location 7246](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B082VCG483&location=7246))